


triumphant returns

by howlikeagod



Series: our dreams were like fugitive warlords [2]
Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, One Shot, Pre-Canon, canon-typical Kids With Guns, i've had this sitting on my laptop for like a month and i didn't know what to do with it, oldtown teens, so now i'm Locked In to writing more of the kids
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-13
Updated: 2018-08-13
Packaged: 2019-06-27 02:56:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15676608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/howlikeagod/pseuds/howlikeagod
Summary: Juno refuses to study. Sasha learns a thing or two.





	triumphant returns

**Author's Note:**

> title of this fic and series both from "Home Again Garden Grove" by the Mountain Goats

“That thing’s gonna blow up in your hands if you keep using it like that,” Juno says.

Sasha sighs. She worked hard for two summers—odd jobs and anonymous police tips and reminding Mick, with increasing intimidation, how many creds he still owed her over the course of a decade of friendship—to save up for this blaster. It isn’t shiny; it’s from a pawn shop two blocks south of Oldtown and probably older than Sasha is. Still, she likes the weight of it in her hands. There aren’t many things that are truly _hers,_ and even fewer that represent what this does: a result, and a promise.

“What are you talking about?” she humors him. He rolls over to hang his torso off the side of her bed, where he’s been ignoring his homework for the past two hours.

“You have to take them apart to clean them. Sometimes the laser card leaks discharge when it gets used up or left in too long.” He points to a small black tab on the end of the grip. A faint, dried residue frames the edges; Sasha had assumed it was from some long-ago shoddy repairs.

“How would _you_ know?” It isn’t that Sasha thinks this sounds implausible; it’s that she hates it when Juno is right. It happens so rarely, always an unpleasant surprise. He gets so smug about it.

Juno doesn’t say anything in response. Instead, he reaches down into his backpack. In his hand, loose but careful grip like Sasha has seen from people who actually know what they’re doing, is another blaster. It looks a lot like Sasha’s, but newer—or, she thinks grudgingly, better taken-care of.

Sasha freezes. She readies herself to kick it out of his hand and climb out the window, run like something is about to explode. Her rational thinking shuts the instinct down, but barely.

“Where did you get that?”

“Where do you think,” Juno laughs without humor. “I didn’t like the thought of what she’d do with it. She hasn’t noticed it’s missing yet.”

“What will she do when she does?” A spark of protective fear shoots up in Sasha’s stomach. Revenge is never productive, but she can’t help but fantasize now and then about the day when she has all the power and strength and influence she knows is in her future and uses just a drop of it to do something _really_ satisfying to Sarah Steel.

In a shocking turn of events, Juno wants escape more than vengeance. Benzaiten doesn’t want either. Sasha, per usual, wants everything.

“Blame me,” Juno shrugs, like the very idea isn’t something that used to send him running god-knows-where. “Or she’ll think she just lost it. Probably the first one, if I’m being honest, but in the meantime we’re all a little safer.”

Sasha sighs again. A teenager stealing his mother’s gun shouldn’t be the responsible thing to do. Still, she has a glaring question.

“And why in the galaxy, Juno, did you keep it?”

He smiles a tiny, self-satisfied little grin. It’s the kind of dashing look that dents Sasha’s usual ironclad bafflement as to why a handful of people, against all odds and reason, have wanted to kiss Juno Steel.

“Turns out I’m not a bad shot.”


End file.
